Zara Caves to Consumer Pressure, Pledges to Eliminate Toxic Chemicals

The world's largest fashion retailer has pledged to eliminate all hazardous chemicals from its supply chain and products by 2020. After a week of intense pressure from Greenpeace "Detox" campaign, Zara and its Spanish parent company, Inditex, will require its suppliers to disclose pollution data to communities at the site of the water pollution as early as March 2013. More significantly, Zara, one of the biggest users of perfluorinated compounds (PFCs), has committed to phasing out the hormone-disrupting chemicals no later than the end of 2015. The company also promises to reinforce a ban on alkylphenol ethoxylates (APEOs), which scientists describe as “highly toxic to aquatic life.”

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Among the company’s plans: to release more details about its supply chain, publish an updated “Restricted Substances List,” and audit processes by the end of April 2013 and every year thereafter.

“In line with Inditex’s long-term sustainability programme, Inditex recognises the urgent need for eliminating industrial releases of all hazardous chemicals,” Inditex writes on its website. “The company has committed to a wholesale reduction in the use of chemicals like formaldehyde, arylamines, phenols (PCP, TeCP), cadmium, lead, chromium (VI), nickel, and allergenic dyes.”

Zara became the eighth brand to sign on to Greenpeace’s zero-discharge roadmap after a damning report on the fashion industry’s worst polluters.

Zara became the eighth brand to sign on to Greenpeace’s zero-discharge roadmap nine days after the environmental nonprofit published a damning report on the fashion industry’s most toxic polluters. More than 315,000 people participated in its public campaign against Zara, according to Greenpeace, including tens of thousands who took action on Facebook and Twitter. Another 700 protested outside Zara storefronts, a number resorting to a form of street theater, in cities such as Budapest, Geneva, Hamburg, Hong Kong, and Madrid.

“Greenpeace welcomes Zara’s commitment to toxic-free fashion. If the world’s biggest fashion retailer can do it, there’s no excuse for other brands not to clean up their supply chains and make fashion without pollution,” Martin Hojsik, Detox campaign coordinator at Greenpeace International, says in a statement. “People around the world have spoken out against toxic fashion and it’s now time for other brands such as Esprit, Gap, and Victoria’s Secret to listen to their customers and urgently detox.”